Providing Remote Access to Media Streams

ABSTRACT

A multimedia player is provided access to recorded multimedia data including data of a first media type, e.g., voice, and at least a second media type, e.g., text, exchanged between at least one user and at least one server. The recorded multimedia data of the first media type is synchronized with the recorded multimedia data of the second media type, e.g., by matching timing information, and the synchronized data is combined. The combined data is then rendered into an audio-video format compatible with the multimedia player. The rendered data may then be saved into a file accessible by the multimedia player. The rendered data may be sent to a multimedia player, or a hyperlink may be created for accessing the rendered data by the multimedia player. The recorded data may be annotated with multimedia data. The user may be notified that the multimedia data has been recorded.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of commonly assigned U.S.patent applications Ser. No. 10/061,469, 10/061,489, and 10/061,491filed Jan. 31, 2002 and hereby incorporated by reference. Thisapplication is also a continuation-in-part of commonly assigned U.S.patent application Ser. No. 10/058,911, filed Jan. 28, 2002 and herebyincorporated by reference. Also, this application is related tocopending applications entitled “Methods and Systems for Categorizingand Cataloguing Recorded Interactions”, “Method and System forSelectively Dedicating Resources for Recording Data Exchanged BetweenEntities Attached to a Network”, and “Method and System for PresentingEvents Associated with Recorded Data Exchanged Between a Server and aUser”, filed on or about the same day as the present application anhereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND

The present invention is directed to a method and system for providingaccess to captured multimedia data. More particularly, the presentinvention is directed to a method and system for providing access to amultimedia player of multimedia data captured during exchanges between auser and a server to a multimedia player.

For systems employing interactions between a user and server, it isoften desirable to be able to view the interactions, ideally in a mannerthat is transparent to the user. This is particularly desirable in acontext such as sales, customer service, and c-commerce, whereinteractions between customers and a service provider are importantindicators of customer satisfaction.

Attempts have been made to recreate interactions between a user and aserver. For example, click stream analysis procedures have been used torecreate interactions between a web user and a web service provider.This type of procedure is analogous to reviewing and analyzing thescript to a movie. While this procedure reveals some information aboutthe interaction between the server and the user, it does not provide aclear tangible picture of special effects, the environment, chemistrybetween the user and the server, etc.

Other attempts have been made to replay recorded interactions between aserver and a user. However, these attempts are typically implemented atthe server and are thus suitable only for a particular type of server.The format into which the data is recorded is typically not accessibleby a large number of users using conventional servers. Also, therecorded exchanges often contain multimedia data, e.g., text and audio,which needs to be synchronized.

In addition, these approaches typically do not distinguish betweeninteractions that are considered important and interactions that are notimportant. Thus, a lot of time and resources are wasted on replayingunimportant recorded interactions.

Also, it may be important for users to be notified when certain eventsoccur, e.g., when certain data is recorded. In addition, it may beuseful to annotate recorded interactions upon playback.

There is thus a need for a technique for providing access to multimediadata captured during exchanges between and a web server and a user.There is also a need for providing for notification to users of eventoccurrence and to provide of annotation of recorded data.

SUMMARY

The present invention is directed to a method and system for providingaccess to a multimedia player of multimedia data captured during atleast one interaction between at least one server and at least one user.It is a further object of the present invention to provide fornotification to a user of certain event occurrences. It is still afurther object of the present invention to provide for annotation ofrecorded data exchanges.

According to exemplary embodiments, these and other objects are met by amethod and system for providing access to a multimedia player ofrecorded multimedia data including data of a first media type, e.g.,voice, and at least a second media type, e.g., text, exchanged betweenat least one user and at least one server. The recorded multimedia dataof the first media type is synchronized with the recorded multimediadata of the second media type, e.g., by matching timing information, andthe synchronized data is combined. The combined data is then renderedinto an audio-video format compatible with the multimedia player. Therendered data may then be saved into a file accessible by the multimediaplayer. The rendered data may be sent to a multimedia player, or ahyperlink may be created for accessing the rendered data by themultimedia player.

According to one aspect of the invention, the recorded multimedia datamay be annotated with annotation data of a first media type, annotationdata of at least a second media type, or a combination of annotationdata of the first media type and the second media type. The annotationmay be performed upon playback of the recorded data via the multimediaplayer.

According to another aspect of the invention, a user may be notifiedthat the multimedia data has been recorded. Notification may beperformed by sending a page, a personal digital assistant (PDA) message,a wireless application protocol (WAP) message, an e-mail message to theuser, or a cellular telephone message.

Further objects, advantages and features of the present invention willbecome more apparent when reference is made to the following descriptiontaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates an exemplary system for capturing, recording, andplaying back data according to an exemplary embodiment;

FIG. 1B illustrates in detail an exemplary system for recording data;

FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate exemplary systems in which the invention maybe implemented;

FIG. 3A-3D illustrate exemplary screens for presenting recorded eventsto a user;

FIGS. 4A-4E illustrate exemplary screens for annotating data;

FIGS. 5A and 5B illustrate exemplary screens used for notification;

FIGS. 6A-6G illustrate exemplary screens used for exporting one or morecontacts; and

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary system for synchronizing multimedia datafor playback and export.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

According to exemplary embodiments, access is provided to a multimediaplayer of data exchanged between a server and a user. In the followingdescription, the server is referred to as a web server, and the user isreferred to as a web browser. It will be appreciated, however, that theinvention may be applicable to other types of servers and users.

FIG. 1A illustrates an exemplary system for capturing, recording, andplaying data in which the invention may be implemented. The systemincludes a server, such as a web server 100, a data capturing module,such as a page capture module 110, and a user, such as a web browser120.

Although only one web server 100, page capture module 110, and webbrowser 120 are depicted in FIG. 1, it will be appreciated that theinvention is applicable to any number of servers, data capturingmodules, and users.

The web browser 120 may be implemented in a personal computer, atelephone, etc. The web server 100 may be implemented as a serversupporting any operating system, e.g., Unix, Linux, NT or Windows 2000.

The page capture module 110 is arranged between the web server 100 andthe web browser 120. For security purposes, a firewall 115 may separatethe web browser 120 and the page capture module 110.

The page capture module 110 operates independently from the web server100 and the web browser 120. Thus, the page capture module 110 does notneed to be customized for each type of web server but may be used withany web server, supporting any operating system.

Although the page capture module 110 operates independently from the webserver 100 and the web browser, it may be implemented in the same deviceas the web server 100 or the web browser 120.

The page capture module 110 captures pages and other data exchangedbetween the web server 100 and the browser 120. Pages and other data maybe captured continually or at designated intervals or time windows. Thepage capture module 110 may also record these pages and other data, orrecording may be performed in a separate recorder server connected tothe page capture module.

Each web browser 120 is assigned a unique machine identity (ID) by theweb server 100. A persistent machine ID cookie may be created by the webserver 110 and stored at the web browser 120 for this purpose. All pagesserved to a particular web browser 120 are identified and grouped by themachine ID.

Although the module 110 is described as a page capture module, accordingto exemplary embodiments, other types of data may also be captured. Forexample, events and attributes may be captured. Attributes may becaptured in a manner similar to that in which pages are captured, asdescribed above.

For event capturing, according to an exemplary embodiment, an eventcapture module captures user side events and delivers these to the pagecapture module 110. The event capture module may be implemented as anapplet 130 that is downloaded to the web browser 120. Although shown asa separate component, the event capture applet 130 is stored at thebrowser, with parameters such as the web browser machine ID, the hostInternet Protocol (IP) address, and the current page name. The eventcapture applet 130 may be notified, for example, by JavaScript embeddedin the current page, whenever an event needs to be recorded. The eventcapture applet 130 records events such as: page load, page unload, pagescroll, page resize, and browser exit. The event capture applet 130sends captured events to the page capturing module 110 via, for example,a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) socketconnection on port 80 (or port 443 for secure exchanges).

Pages and other data captured during exchanges between the web server100 and the web browser 120 at the page capture module 110 are sent fromthe page capturing module 110 to a page preprocessor 125 via, e.g., aTCP/IP socket.

According to an exemplary embodiment, each captured page is assigned aunique page ID and is associated with a specific browser user machineID. Each page may also contain the date and time that the page wascaptured and the page status (recording, processing, playback, etc.)After pages are captured, this information is extracted from thecaptured page, and a new record is inserted into a database 145.

The page preprocessor 125 acts as a recorder server and stores thecaptured data in a device such as a database 145. The pages 135 are thenpassed on to the page post-processor 140. Alternatively, the pagecapturing module 110 may perform this recording. To reduce the amount ofstorage necessary, only predetermined portions of data may be stored,e.g., the request portion or the response portion. Also, only datasatisfying predetermined rules, e.g., rules indicating timing, may bestored. When the captured pages are recorded, identifying informationmay also be recorded, e.g., a session record ID, a date/time ofrecording, a machine ID, etc.

The page capturing module and page preprocessor are described in moredetail in the afore-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/061,469.

A post-processing module 140 determines which captured data satisfiespredefined rules, e.g., business rules, and records this data in aplayback database 180, such as a JAR file. The database 145 is updatedto indicate what captured data has been selected and recorded forplayback. The post-processing module is described in further retailbelow with reference to FIG. 1B.

A playback tool 190 selects recorded data from the database 180, usingthe information in the database 145. The playback module 190 controlsplayback of the data. The data may be displayed, for example, in asearch frame for the web server or the browser.

Although not shown in the interest of simplifying the illustrations, itwill be appreciated that the system in FIG. 1A may also include othercomponents, e.g., configuration files used for processing and log filesuse for storing information for debugging, etc.

According to an exemplary embodiment, a user is allowed to search for,select and playback a recorded browser session using the playback module190. The playback module 190 assembles a session of recordings selectedby the user and plays back the session. The playback module may beimplemented using, e.g., Netscape 4.5× and above browser or an InternetExplorer 4.x and above browser. More details are provided for searching,selecting, and playing of a recorded browser session in theafore-mentioned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/061,491.

FIG. 1B illustrates in detail an exemplary system for processingcaptured data according to an exemplary embodiment. Captured andrecorded pages, attributes, and events are fed to a page post-processingprogram running on a page post-processor 140. A business rules engine150 delivers business rules to the post-processor 140 that evaluates thecaptured/recorded pages to determine whether they satisfy the businessrules.

According to exemplary embodiments, business rules are applied to therecorded data in the business rule engine 150 to determine whether apage should be saved for playback. A business rule may be defined as astatement that defines or constrains some aspect of a business. Thebusiness rule asserts business structure or controls or influences thebehavior of the business.

Data from a page table database 160 and a page rule table database 170may be used in the evaluation by the business rule engine 150. Pagesthat satisfy the business rules are recorded for future playback. Thepage table and page rule database are updated after post-processing.

An example of a comparison of business rule with captured data may bedetermining whether the captured data is an interaction resulting in asale greater than a predetermined number of dollars, determining whetheran interaction was longer than a predetermined number of minutes, etc.As another example, a business rule may state that the current page isto be recorded and all previous pages for that machine ID in thatsession. Also, a business rule comparison may be in the form of voicerecognition.

According to exemplary embodiments pages that do not satisfy thebusiness rules are deleted.

Page post-processing is described in more detail in the afore-mentionedU.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/061,489.

FIG. 2A illustrates an exemplary implementation of a system forcapturing, recording, storing, and playing back data exchanged between auser and a server. According to an exemplary embodiment, business rulesare applied to captured data, e.g., captured pages, using anapplications server such as the server 500 shown in FIG. 2A. The server500 may be implemented as a Component Object Model (COM) based server.

According to an exemplary embodiment, the server 500 includes a businessrules engine, such as the engine 150 shown in FIG. 1B, an editor, ascheduled rules processor, a business object layer (BOL) 510, a dataabstraction layer (DAL) 520 and 525 and a repository or database 530.Alternatively, the database 530 may included as a separate entity, e.g.,if a large load is expected.

Data exchanged between the user and the server may include one or morecontacts. According to an exemplary embodiment, a contact may beconsidered an interaction between, e.g., an agent within the sameenterprise as the server and a user outside the enterprise. In additionto playing back data in sessions as described above, captured data maybe played back as one or more contacts.

A contact may include one or more events and some content representingcontacts in a machine readable form. The events may include occurrencesassociated with entities external to the enterprise, such as occurrencesassociated with Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), telephony, orspeech recognition. Also, the events may include occurrences within theenterprise and occurrences associated with user-initiated annotations.

Attributes of contacts and metadata may be stored in the database 530,as well as business rule data populated and manipulated by the editor.The server 500 communicates with the database 530 to obtain the businessrules. The engine 150 applies the business rules to the captured dataand communicates with a recorder server 540 for recording the captureddata that satisfies predetermined business rules. The BOL 510 interfaceswith both the business rule editor applet and the DAL 520 and 525 tomanage traffic to and from the database 530.

According to an exemplary embodiment, business rules may be added,deleted, copied, pasted, and or modified by a user, such as asupervisor, using the business rules editor implemented in the server500 shown FIG. 2A. The server communicates with a client computer, suchas the computer 550. The client computer may be implemented as abrowser-based application, utilizing Java app lets and HTML, andinterfacing with some COM-Java bridging tool (Jintegra or R-JAX) toallow the Java-based client to communicate with the COM-based server.The business rules editor may be a Java applet running in a browser(NSIE or NN) on the client machine such as the computer 550 shown inFIG. 2A.

According to an exemplary embodiment, contacts are organized and groupedinto a contact folder. The contact(s) may be played back under thecontrol of a contact manager 151 as shown in FIG. 2B.

Referring to FIG. 2B, a contact manager 151 is in communication with thebusiness rules engine 150 for mapping business rules to folders. Thebusiness rules engine 150, in turn, is in communication with a BOL 510that communicates with the database, e.g., through the DAL 520.

As shown in FIG. 2B, the contact manager 151 may communicate with thebusiness rules engine via an internal event notification service 156.The internal event notification service 156 controls notification ofevent occurrences through, e.g., an email notification service 158 fore-mail notification and a pager notification service 157 for pagenotification. Notification is described in more detail below.

As shown in FIG. 2B, the contact manager 151 is also in communicationwith the recorder via a content manager 155 that manages how the contentin a contact is recorded. Also, the contact manager 151 is incommunication with the client via a call or session manager 152 thatmanages session playback, a DCOM interface 153, and a CTI adapter 555.The contact manager 151 also communicates with the event persistence154, e.g., through the internal event notification service 156. Thecontact manager 151 also communicates with the event persistence 154,e.g., through the internal event notification service 156. The eventpersistence 154 maintains events and permits a user to jump to a pointin a contact at which an event occurred. The event persistence 154, inturn, communicates with the database 530.

Also shown in FIG. 2B are a scheduler 159 and a live monitoring andplayback service 161. The scheduler 159 coordinates scheduling of eventoccurrence. The live monitoring and playback service 161 controlsplayback of recorded data and live monitoring of data and is connectedvia a playback socket to a user desiring to playback or monitor thedata.

Recorded and/or live contacts may be replayed to a user under thecontrol of the contact manager 151 and the live monitor/playback server161 connected to the user via a playback socket. The livemonitor/playback server 161 may be considered as part of the playbackmodule 190 shown in FIG. 1A.

The components to the right of the dashed-dotted lines in FIG. 2B may beimplemented, e.g., in an application server 500. Alternatively, some ofthe components shown to the right of the dashed-dotted lines in FIG. 2Bmay be implemented as separate entities.

A contact may include voice/graphical user interface (desktop) data, ane-mail message or a web transaction. A list of contacts may be displayedto a user for playback, as shown, e.g., in FIG. 6A described below andin more detail in the afore-mentioned U.S. patent application entitled“Methods and Systems for Categorizing and Cataloguing RecordedInteractions”.

When a user selects a contact from the contact list page in the contactmodule, a new browser window may be displayed as shown in FIGS. 3A-3D.The browser contains an applet that displays all the events for thecontact. The applet may also contain a player.

According to an exemplary embodiment, each event recorded in a contactmay be assigned an event identifier. This may be in the form of a timecode or a timestamp. For example, voice data may be given a time stamp,and text data may be given a time code.

For playback of events, a list of events may be displayed via a playerin sequence on an event list, e.g., top to bottom, in the order in whichthe event time-stamp occurs. This is illustrated, e.g., in FIGS. 3A and3B, which show an event list of e-mail events, and in FIGS. 3C and 3D,which show an event list of call events.

The screens shown in FIGS. 3A-3D, may be divided into two parts, e.g., aright pane and a left pane. According to an exemplary embodiment, theleft pane contains the contact name and the event list. The event listmay be scrollable. The right pane contains one or more tabs. One tab maylabeled content, and the other tab may be labeled attributes.

When the event list screen is first opened, the user may be presentedwith the contact name at the top of the left pane and a list of eventsbelow the contact name on the left pane. The first event may bepreselected automatically, and its content table may be visible in theright pane.

The interface allows all events associated with a contact to bedisplayed. If the user does not have security privileges to the events,they may not be displayed.

Referring again to FIGS. 3A and 3C, when a user selects an event name inthe left pane, the right pane displays the “content” tab open, and the“attributes” tab behind it. Upon selection of the content tab, thescreen shown in FIG. 3A (for e-mail events) or FIG. 3C (for call events)is displayed. Upon selection of the attributes tab, the screen shown inFIG. 3B (for e-mail events) or FIG. 3D (for call events) is displayed.On the attributes tab, all the attributes of the event are displayed,including the attribute name and value. Also, right mouse clicking on anevent may cause the attributes of the event to be displayed.

According to an exemplary embodiment, the display may be differentdepending on the type of contact.

For example, if the contact is an e-mail message, the player has theability to show information for each event in the contact in textformat. The e-mail contact may be stored in the event as an attribute.There is no content to display for e-mails.

An e-mail event, in most cases, contains the text of an e-mail message.However, this is not always the case. For example, if an e-mail does notreach its destination, then this would correspond to some event butthere would not necessarily be an e-mail message associated with theevent. Some text may be displayed describing the event. The text of ane-mail message may be obtained from the corresponding attribute.

If the event is an e-mail event, and the address and text attributes arepresent, the re-constructed email may be displayed in the “content” tab,as shown, e.g., in FIG. 3A. The content includes the re-constructedemail, including addressing information and the e-mail text, with someicon representation of any attachments. The applet shows a list containsall the events/emails in a chain. An e-mail may be displayed byselecting it from the events/email list. If the e-mail cannot bereconstructed, the message “there is no available content for thisevent” may displayed instead.

In the content tab, shown in FIG. 3B, the event attributes may includeanything. It the attributes contain the email address an text attribute,the e-mail may be reconstructed to include to: information, which mayinclude many names separated by semicolon, a sender, the date/time sent,a cc recipient string, a bcc recipient string, the subject line, theemail text, which may be scrollable, and any attachments. If it is notpossible to reconstruct the email from the attributes present for theevent, a message such as “no viewable content exists for this event” maybe displayed in the content window.

If the contact is a voice/graphics user interface contact, e.g., a call,content and attribute data may be displayed as shown in FIGS. 3C and 3D,respectively. The these types of contacts, the player has the ability toplay the voice/graphical user interface data for all events in thecontact. This includes all annotations and bookmarks. The content of theagent desktop (if any) may be displayed on the screen 3C.

In addition to the content screen shown in FIG. 3C, controls for play,pause, stop, fast forward, and rewind may be displayed along a progressbar as shown, e.g., in FIG. 4C. The user may use any of the controls tonavigate through playback. Any action requested applies to both voiceand graphical user interface data. A pointer representing the relativeposition of the listener in the contact may be displayed on the timelinebar. Also, by selecting an event in the list, the user may jump to aspecific location in playback.

Once a contact has been played back, an indicator may be set that thecontact/session has been reviewed. This indicator may be stored as avalue in the database. An icon representing the reviewed/unreviewedstatus may appear on the contact list of contacts.

There may be a limit to the number of contacts that may be recordedwithout having been reviewed. To keep track of unreviewed contacts, inaddition to setting an indicator, the count of unreviewed sessions maybe decremented by one. This prevents contacts continually being savedwithout the events being reviewed. The unreviewed contact counter may bestored in the database.

For contact events, in the left pane the event name may be preceded byone or more icons which indicate the type of media involved in theevent, whether the media is voice and GUI, voice only, or e-mail. Anexample may be business rule triggered events or annotations.Annotations may include voice and/or text. Business rule trigger eventshave no icons.

If one or more business rules have been triggered on this contact, thename(s) of the business rule(s) triggered may be displayed. If the userselects a business rule name from the left pane, the content tab in theright pane displays the content of the event which triggered thebusiness rules. If no content is available, e.g., because the businessrules was triggered after a call, a message “no viewable content forthis event” may be displayed. If the event was a voice event, play maybegin at the point where the business rule was triggered, e.g., at thetime-stamp in the contact content.

In addition to playing back recorded contacts between a server and auser, agent initiated monitoring (AIM) recorded contacts may be playedback. Also, live monitoring may be provided, in which a data exchange isplayed back as it occurs.

If AIM recordings have been stored for an event, a caption “agentinitiated monitor % agent name % may be listed in the event list, onefor each occurrence. If live monitor recordings have been stored for anevent, a caption live monitor record by % name-of-person % may be listedin the event list, one for each occurrence.

In addition to playing back recorded events and live monitor playback, auser may annotate contacts upon playback. Contact annotation is theprocess of adding text or voice to a contact during playback.

According to an exemplary embodiment, to annotate a contact, a userselects a contact in a contact folder using, e.g., a screen such as thatshown in FIG. 6A. This causes the event viewer, such as that shown inFIG. 3A-3D to be displayed. The user may make voice and text annotationsto the contact.

The name of each annotation created for a contact may be displayed,unless the annotation is marked private. If the annotation is markedprivate, it may only appear in the list if the user is also theannotation owner. To the left of the annotation name, an icon may appearto indicate if the annotation is voice or text.

At any point in the replay, the user may add an annotation by selecting“pause” on a player controller, such as that shown in FIG. 4C, and thenpressing tools, annotation, create voice/text annotation. Alternatively,the system may automatically pause if the user attempts to create anannotation during play.

If text annotation is requested, an interface such as that shown inFIGS. 4A and 4B for providing text data may be presented to the user.Once the user requests to save the information, the text data is sent toa contact annotation service. The annotation service creates an eventand sends it to the event notification server.

Voice annotation may be implemented as follows. If s user is listens toplayback on a soundcard, then the voice annotation may be done performedvia soundcard. If the user is listening to playback via a phone, thenthe voice annotation may be performed via phone.

If voice annotation is requested through a phone, a request is made toan annotation service implemented, e.g., in the applications server 500,to record for the agent/extension. For example, the annotation servicemay use, e.g., the voice card 765 shown in FIG. 7 for receiving requestsfor annotation. The annotation service passes the agent/extension to thecontent routing service and requests that recording begin. In anexemplary embodiment, the telephony data manager 760 and the n datamanager 770 shown in FIG. 7 may act as the content routing service. Theannotation data may be stored in a database. The content routing servicereturns a globally unique content identity that may be used to refer tothe recorded information.

The user indicates that recording is complete via a user interfacecontrol. At this point, the user makes a request to the annotationservice that records stop for the particular agent/extension. Theannotation service forwards this request to the content routing serviceto stop the recording.

If voice annotation is requested through a soundcard/microphone, therecorded data and its length are passed to the annotation service. Thisdata is forwarded to the content routing service. The content routingservice returns a globally unique identifier that may be used toreference the recorded information.

According to an exemplary embodiment, the annotation may be given thedate/time stamp of its relative location in the contact. When theannotation is complete, the play may be resumed by clicking the “pause”control again.

The user may also assign a label to the annotation to uniquely anddescriptively identify it.

As annotations are added (saved), the event list may be dynamicallyupdated to include the new annotations.

A user with appropriate access may view an annotation. To view anannotation, the user selects the annotation in the event list. Theannotation may then be displayed (if it is text) or played back (ifvoice). An example of an annotation to an e-mail message is shown inFIG. 4D.

In addition to viewing annotations by selecting annotations in the eventlist, annotations may be viewed using, e.g., a player control includingannotation names as shown in FIG. 4E. When a mouse is moved over theinverted triangle representing an annotation, the name of the annotationappears. The triangle under the timeline bar represents the relativeposition of the listener in the contact.

In addition to annotation, the ability to notify parties is included.Notification may be implemented using a system such as that shown inFIG. 2B, using the internal event notification service 156.

For notification, property screens such as those shown in FIGS. 5A and5B may be displayed. Referring to FIGS. 5A and 5B, if notification isdesired, the send notification checkbox may be checked or thenotification tab may be selected, activating the notification tab on theproperty sheet.

According to an exemplary embodiment, there may be different types ofnotifications, e.g., e-mail notification, page notification, PDA devicenotification, WAP device notification, 3G wireless cellular phonenotification, etc. For simplicity of illustration, only e-mailnotification and page notification are described below.

The notification pages shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B correspond to e-mailnotification and pager notification, respectively. In the exemplaryimplementation shown in FIG. 2B, e-mail notification is controlled bythe e-mail notification service 158, and pager notification iscontrolled by the pager notification service 157.

According to an exemplary embodiment, notification follows a similarroutine whether it occurs via e-mail, pager, PDA, WAP, 3G or any othersuitable device. First, the users who will receive the notification mustbe assigned. For setting notifications, it is assumed that thenotification recipient's information is defined within the user profileand that this information is requested when necessary. For example, fore-mail notification, it is assumed that the recipient's e-mail addressis defined in the user profile.

User names may be multi-selected from the left-hand user list in thescreen shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, and the users may be assigned to thenotification list by clicking the top button. For advanced users, simplydouble-clicking on the user name in the left-hand list may add the nameto the right-hand list. The opposite also holds true. User names may bemulti-selected in the right-hand list and the bottom button clicked toremove them from the notify list, or the name may be double-clicked.

For e-mail notification, there may be two options for the subject line:the rule's name may be used, or some user specified text may be used.The body of the e-mail may be entered into the text box labeled fore-mail text. A notification frequency may be set to indicate how oftenthe user(s) should be sent an e-mail message when the rule is fired.This may be tracked by the business rule engine.

As shown in FIG. 5B, the configuration for notification via pager isvery similar to that for e-mail. The assignment of users follows thesame method. Where the e-mail definition dealt with a subject line, thepager setup requires the actual text to be sent to the pager. Theoptions are to either use the rule name or to use some user-definedtext. The paging time constraint restricts the time that users may bepaged to a specific time range. Again, as with e-mail notification, anotification frequency may be set.

Notifications are particularly useful when interactions are played to anentity outside of the enterprise. For example, an entity outside of theenterprise using, e.g., Windows media player may desire to access thedata. This entity may be, e.g., a supervisor interested in viewing orpersonnel in other parts of the company. This outside entity may nothave equipment necessary to playback the recorded interactions in theformat in which they are stored in the enterprise, e.g., VOX format forvoice data and proprietary DAT format for text data. Also, since thedata may contain media of different types, the data needs to besynchronized before being presented to the media player.

Thus, according to an exemplary embodiment, voice and data (e.g.,desktop content) of a contact may be converted to any audio-video formateasily accessible without requiring special hardware. Examples of suchan audio-video format into which the contact may be converted include anaudio video interleaved (AVI) format, a Moving Pictures Expert Group(MPEG) format, etc.

The converted file may be saved in an HTML format and associated with ahyperlink or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that is accessible bylaunching a media player. This is described in more detail below.Alternatively, the user may choose to email the converted file, and theconverted file may be provided as an attachment to an email.

For exporting a contact, the contact folder that contains the contact tobe exported may be selected via a contact tab such as that shown in FIG.6A. Once the contact is selected, the export feature may be selectedusing a contact editing pop-up menu, such as that shown in FIG. 6B.

Rather than selecting a contact to export using the contact tab, theplayback event viewer may also include a button for “export contact”.This may only be visible if a user has permission. The playback eventviewer may also contain validation to allow this on CTI contacts only,not e-mail or web contacts. An error message may be generated ifvalidation fails.

If the “export contact” button is selected while the contact is beingreplayed, the replay may be paused until the conversion is complete, andthe user has specified the file name and path for the converted file.Then, replay may resume.

Using the dialog box shown in FIG. 6C, a user may decide whether toexport audio data only, video data only, or audio and video. Theselected contact is then converted into a format compatible with themultimedia player. While the conversion occurs, a window may display theprogress, as shown in FIG. 6D. If conversion of the contact fails, amessage may be generated.

When the conversion is complete, the converted contact may be saved, anda hyperlink may be created for the contact using the screen shown, e.g.,in FIG. 6E. The file type may be passed back to the browser, which maythen display a “file, SaveAs” box. The user selects the path and name.For an AVI file, the extension is forced to “avi”.

If the save is not successful, an error message may be displayed. Ifsuccessful, the “file Save As” box is closed, and replay resumes if thecontact was paused in replay. Otherwise, direction from the user isawaited.

A user may decide to view the contact or e-mail the link to the contactusing a dialog box such as that shown in FIG. 6F. To e-mail the contactlink, the user may be presented with a default mail client set to“composed”, and the unique contact name may be displayed in the subjectline as shown in FIG. 6F. The user completes the “to” field in thee-mail window and any other information in the body of the message andselects “send”. The hyperlink link for the contact may then be sent tothe e-mail addresses.

A multimedia player may then be launched from a machine to view thecontact by linking to that URL. The media player may be launched from acontrol panel screen, such as that shown in FIG. 6G. The convertedcontact may be replayed by commercially available media player, whichmay be chosen by the customer and obtained at the customer's option.

Contacts may be retrieved from an archives and converted to anaudio-video format, in a similar fashion.

An audit trail data of converted contact may be available for reporting,at customer's option. The audit trail may include information indicatingwhat entity converted the file, the contact name, and the date. Theaudit trail may be handled similarly to reporting.

FIG. 7 illustrates a system for synchronizing multimedia data accordingto an exemplary embodiment. In FIG. 7, control signal paths arerepresented by dotted lines, and data signal paths are represented bysolid lines.

As shown in FIG. 7, a recording interface 705 receives signals from arecorder server 540. Also, the recorder interface 705 is connected tovoice card drivers 715 via a telephone network connection manager 710for receiving control data. The recorder interface 705 outputs controlsignals to the central unit 700 which, in turn, outputs control signalsto the LAN data managers 730 and 735, the telephony data manager 760,and the n data manager 770.

A node manager 720 starts various processes performed by the componentsand monitors their progress. A time synchronization 725 unit provides asynchronization signal to all components so that the playback of therecorded contacts is synchronized.

The LAN data manager 730 receives captured screen data, e.g., from anagent's desktop from screen data record units 740 and 745. This data maybe stored in a local storage 775 and then transferred to a database viathe data store manager 780.

The telephony data manager 760 receives captured voice data via a voicecard driver 765. This data may also be stored in the local storage 775and transferred to a database via the data store manager 780. Also, thisdata may be provided, e.g., back to the agent for live monitoring.

Screen data in the local storage 775 may be provided to the LAN datamanager 735 for playback, e.g., to an agent or a supervisor, via theplayback module 750. The playback module 750 synchronizes data ofdifferent media types, e.g., voice data and text data. This may beperformed by matching, e.g., the time codes of the voice data and thetime stamps of the text data.

The playback module 750 also converts the multimedia data into anaudio-video format suitable for a multimedia player, e.g., an AVI formator an MPEG format. The playback module then exports the data to localstorage 755. When a media player is launched from, e.g., a browseroutside the enterprise, the converted audio-video format file may beretrieved from the local storage 755 and played back.

Both recorded data and live data may be processed in the playback module750.

A n data manager 770 receives data from the local storage 775 andoutputs data to other applications, as desired.

All of the components in FIG. 7 may be implemented in the applicationsserver 500.

According to exemplary embodiments, captured multimedia data may berecorded and stored, annotated, and exported for playback to any mediaplayer. Also, users may be notified upon recording and storing.

It should be understood that the foregoing description and accompanyingdrawings are by example only. A variety of modifications are envisionedthat do not depart from the scope and spirit of the invention. The abovedescription is intended by way of example only and is not intended tolimit the present invention in any way.

1-46. (canceled)
 47. A method for providing remote access to mediastreams, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a request toexport media streams for remote presentation the media streamscomprising a first media stream and a second media stream originatingfrom disparate sources and related by a circumstance external to thefirst or second media streams; converting the first media stream and thesecond media stream into one or more generic formats to produce a firstgeneric media stream and a second generic media stream; combining thefirst and second common media streams to form a generic file complyingwith an industry standard; and wherein the combined file complying withan industry standard enables presentation of the combined file using ageneric multimedia player, the generic multimedia player beinginoperable to present one or more of the first media stream or thesecond media stream.
 48. The method of claim 47, wherein the convertingand combining comprise exporting the media streams into the generic filefor secure communication to a remote user.
 49. The method of claim 47,wherein the generic formats comprise formats configured to be used withan audio-video interleave standard format.
 50. The method of claim 47,wherein the generic formats comprise formats configured to be used witha moving picture experts group standard format.
 51. The method of claim47, wherein the first media stream is a video stream comprising datacaptured from a computer associated with a contact center agent, and thefirst generic media stream comprises a format conversion of the firstmedia stream.
 52. The method of claim 51, wherein the second mediastream is an audio stream captured from a telephone associated with thecontact center agent, and the second generic media stream comprisesformat conversion of the second media stream.
 53. The method of claim 52the generic file comprises an overlay of the audio stream onto the videostream based upon independently generated time associated with the audiostream and the video stream, respectively.
 54. The method of claim 47,wherein the media streams result from contact center interactionsbetween a customer and a contact center agent.
 55. The method of claim47, wherein the synchronizing comprises matching the time stampsassociated with the first media stream with the time stamps associatedwith the second media stream.
 56. The method of claim 47, furthercomprising securely communicating the combined file to a remote user.57. The method of claim 47, further comprising streaming the combinedfile to a remote user for playback, where in the industry standardmultimedia player resides on remote computer associated with the remoteuser.
 58. The method of claim 47, further comprising creating ahyperlink to the combined file for accessing the combined file using theindustry standard multimedia player.
 59. The method of claim 47, whereinat least one of the media streams comprise a voice exchange, a voice andtext exchange, a web chat, instant messaging, email, or an internettransaction.
 60. The method of claim 47, wherein the combining isconfigured to thread exchanges, such that any related media streams areoverlayed when the media streams have matching time stamps orconcatenated for presentation as a continuous interaction where the timestamps indicate that related media streams occur in series.
 61. A systemfor providing remote access to disparate media streams, the systemcomprising: a interface configured to receive a request to export acontact center interaction to a generic file, the contact centerinteraction comprising a plurality of media streams originating fromdisparate sources and related by a circumstance external to the mediastreams; a mixer configured to combine the plurality of media streamsinto a single multimedia file, the single multimedia file enablingpresentation of the media streams by a third party multimedia player;wherein the third party multimedia player is inoperable to present oneor more of the plurality of media streams prior to combination of theplurality of media streams.
 62. The system of claim 61, wherein thesingle multimedia file comprises a format configured to be used with anaudio-video interleave standard format.
 63. The system of claim 61,wherein the single multimedia file comprises a format configured to beused with a moving picture experts group standard format.
 64. The systemof claim 61, wherein file plurality of media streams comprises a firstmedia stream comprising a video stream including data captured from acomputer associated with a contact center agent.
 65. The system of claim64, wherein the plurality of media streams comprises a second mediastream comprising an audio stream captured from a telephone associatedwith the contact center agent.
 66. The system of claim 65, wherein thesingle multimedia file comprises an overlay of the audio stream onto thevideo stream based upon time stamps generated by an audio source and avideo source, respectively; and, wherein the audio source and videosource comprise the disparate sources.
 67. The system of claim 61,wherein the plurality of media streams result from contact centerinteractions between a customer and a contact center agent.
 68. Thesystem of claim 61, wherein the mixer is further configured tosynchronize the plurality of media streams by matching time stampsgenerated by their respective disparate sources and associated with theplurality of media streams, respectively.
 69. The system of claim 61,further comprising a communications interface configured to securelycommunicate the single multimedia file to a remote user.
 70. The systemof claim 61, further comprising a communications interface configured tostream the single multimedia file to a remote user for playback, whereinthe third party multimedia player resides on a remote computerassociated with the remote user.
 71. The system of claim 61, furthercomprising a web interface configured to generate a hyperlink to thesingle multimedia file, the hyperlink being configured to access thesingle multimedia file using the third party multimedia player.
 72. Thesystem of claim 61, wherein at least one of the plurality of mediastreams comprises a voice exchange, a voice and text exchange, a webchat, instant messaging, e-mail, or an internet transaction.
 73. Thesystem of claim 61, wherein the combining is configured to threadexchanges, such that any of the plurality of media streams which arerelated are overlayed on top of each other when the media streams havematching time stamps, or concatenated for presentation as a continuousinteraction where the time stamps indicate that any of the plurality ofmedia streams which are related occur in series.
 74. A method,comprising: receiving a request for first media data derived from afirst source and second media data derived from a second source, thefirst media data and second media data being associated by arelationship external to the first or second media data; converting thefirst media data or the second media data to a standard format, if thefirst media data or the second media data are in a native format,respectively; combining the first media data and the second media datainto a multimedia file for playback on a standard multimedia device; andproviding the multimedia file, wherein the native format is incompatiblefor playback on the standard multimedia device.